‘I wanted to talk to you about one of my students,’ says Ruth. ‘Joe McMahon. He was the one who came to see you about the Tombland skeleton.’
‘I remember. Chap with a beard.’
‘That’s right. I just wondered if you remembered anything specific about the conversation.’
Janet must wonder why she’s asking but, unlike Shona, she doesn’t press the matter.
‘He wanted to know why a skeleton would be buried on its own like that. He thought it might mean that she was an outcast. Or a suicide.’
Eileen had said something similar, Ruth remembers.
‘I don’t think it was a deviant burial,’ says Ruth. ‘The body was wrapped in a shroud and was probably just interred in the graveyard. I told the students that.’
‘He was quite intense,’ says Janet. ‘He told me that his mother had died recently. I felt quite sorry for him. Actually, hope this doesn’t make you feel old, but he said he thought of you as a mother figure.’
Old isn’t what this makes Ruth feel.
‘I showed Joe the original plans to Augustine Steward’s House,’ says Janet. ‘He seemed very interested. He said he was thinking of writing his dissertation about Tombland.’
‘He’s only a first year,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s a bit early to be thinking of dissertations.’
‘Really? I thought he seemed older. But, seriously, I don’t think there’s any harm in him. He’s just a bit sad and a bit intense. We’ve all been there.’
Ruth definitely knows what it’s like to be eighteen and intense. She thinks of the days when she was dating Daniel, readingThe Brothers Karamazovin the library and dreaming of escape. Life for Janet, pre-transition, must have been difficult in ways that Ruth can’t even imagine. Maybe she’s being a bit hard on Joe. After all, it’s his business what he puts on his walls. She decides to change the subject.
‘Have you found somewhere to live?’ she says. ‘When we last spoke you said you had to move out of your flat.’
‘Yes, I’ve found somewhere.’ Janet gives a little laugh.
‘Is it in the centre of town?’
‘Oh yes,’ says Janet. ‘Dead centre.’
Isn’t that the punchline of a joke? Janet doesn’t seem to want to explain so, after a few minutes’ desultory chat, Ruth says goodbye and rings off.
Chapter 23
The trouble with lockdown, thinks Ruth, is that the evenings are so long. Kate has finished Hogwarts by five and is wandering around the room, picking things up and sighing. Flint is not much better. He keeps standing on Ruth’s keyboard and inserting the letters ‘ppppooootttt’ into her comments column. Ruth gives up. She switches on the news and learns that Boris Johnson has tested positive for Covid. His statement says that he’s working from home and ‘continuing to lead the national fightback against coronavirus’. Fightback sounds as if the battleground is even, instead of the virus having all the weapons. Ruth hopes the Prime Minister recovers quickly. There’s something frightening about the leader of the country being taken ill, whether you voted for him or not. She turns the radio off.
Ruth pours herself a glass of wine and contemplates supper. Should she make some for Nelson? What did he mean by ‘later’? She doesn’t think she’s ever cooked for him before and has no doubt that she will show up badly compared to Michelle’s culinary skills. She always imagines Michelle putting perfect meals in front of Nelson, like a 1950s housewife. Well, things are a little different chez Ruth. She decides to cook a bolognaise sauce which can be heated up later with fresh pasta if necessary. Flint comes in to remind her that he likes uncooked mince. She cooks it for him all the same.
While the sauce is cooking, Ruth takes her wine into the garden. She doesn’t want to join Kate in front ofPointlessand she feels too restless to read. When she was at work, she would buy theGuardianfrom the campus bookstore and do the quick crossword in the evening. A daily newspaper is one of the minor casualties of lockdown. Ruth sits on the doorstep and watches Flint prowling through the long grass. She thinks of Eileen alone, or almost alone, in the empty halls of residence. She imagines Joe’s locked room– she is sure that Nelson will have shoulder-barged the door– the dust covering every surface, the photographs on the noticeboard. Photographs of her. A shrine, Nelson said. The word gives Ruth a slight shiver, one that seems to be echoed in the breeze ruffling the leaves of the apple tree. She thinks of Walsingham, England’s Nazareth, a place of pilgrimage since the eleventh century, the Anglican shrine, the Slipper Chapel, the archway of the ruined monastery. She remembers a woman’s body being found under that same archway. Shrines aren’t always healthy places.
According to Janet, Joe thought of Ruth as a ‘mother figure’. If he’s about twenty (Ruth thinks he’s slightly older than the other first years but it’s hard to tell with the beard) then, biologically, it’s perfectly possible. Even so, the words seem suddenly sinister. Presumably the Virgin Mary was a mother figure for the pilgrims at Walsingham. But not everyone worships their mother.
It’s almost dark now, the sky navy blue behind the trees. The security light comes on as Flint appears, tightrope walking along the fence. Zoe’s voice floats into the twilight. ‘Derek, De-rek.’ She must be anxious about her cat, unused as he is to the outside world. Ruth wonders whether to call out to her neighbour, to say that she’s sure Derek is fine, but somehow she doesn’t feel like talking. It’s a comfort to know that there’s someone on the other side of the fence though. A woman and a cat. The perfect combination.
Still, she can’t sit on her back-doorstep all evening. Ruth goes back into the kitchen and stirs the sauce. It needs something but she can’t think what. She adds some salt, pepper and a splash of her wine for luck. She puts on some water for the pasta. Then she goes into the sitting room where Kate is still watching the quiz show. Ruth thinks of the English teachers and their Zoom quiz tomorrow.Which of Shakespeare’s heroines said this?Well, she’s got better things to do. Or has she? Will Nelson still be with them tomorrow? If so, it’ll be the first time she’s ever spent a complete Saturday with him. What will they do? It’s not as if they can have a day out after all. They can take Bruno for a walk, she supposes. They can have supper together and watch a film on Netflix. Don’t think about it, Ruth tells herself, and then you won’t be disappointed. She opens her laptop. She’ll get some more marking done.
She sees immediately that she has new emails from Peter and Shona. She opens Shona’s first, to put off the other.
Shona has sent the text of ‘To Althea, from Prison’ by Richard Lovelace.
When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my Gates,
And my divineAltheabrings
